A is for April

To get the full coverage of what's been going on at the Peacock's home, I wrote a small novel tonight about it in a previous post.
If you don't care to read it, let's just say, life has been crazy!
Our very last semester is going full speed ahead and post-college is starting out with some major stress. He has 2 job offers on the table right now. That's wonderful. and difficult at the same time! One is at a small company in Payson called Sunstone Engineering.  The second is at the Space Dynamic Lab here in Logan.  Both are great opportunities, but for different reasons.

Meanwhile, on April 14th, Luke Defended his thesis. It was A SUCCESS!  He gave a 35 minute presentation on his Equine Distress Monitor project and then they grilled him, kicked him out while they discussed it, and brought him back in to congratulate him.  It was a very happy day!
Interestingly, with all his job interviews and everything, this was the first time he's really been nervous.  But he did a great job and I was glad I could be there to witness it.

Aside from school, jobs, thesis defenses, (how in the world do we have time for anything else?!) We've been trying to squeeze in some time with our funny, silly, cute, little girls. (okay, I have tons of time with them, but Luke isn't quite as lucky)

So rain or shine (and we encountered a whole lot of rain!) We took the girls to the American West Heritage Center for some Baby Animal Days. 

Ducks and cows.  The cow is sucking on Luke's fingers-- he was a bit hungry I'd guess!

Here's a pig, there's a pig, everywhere's a pig jig!

I was surprised at how readily Adelia approached this goat.  She loves animals and certainly doesn't fear them like her older sister!  Tianna squeals in fright even when a baby chick touches her.

Turtles!

Face Painting!

Our little chicky got a baby chickie on her cheekie.  I have never in her life seen Adelia hold more still.  She didn't move a muscle the entire time they were painting her cheek.

Tianna thought the butterfly across her entire face was the best thing ever. I have to admit, they both looked pretty cute!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-HAH!  I kinda feel like my face is too small for my body. What do you think?

On the train!

It was a wet, but wonderful day! 

And just a few more gems that need to be posted somewhere:
She is yet again becoming Tianna-mini.  Our little dress up queens! 

And probably one my favorite pictures of all time was taken this morning. 

"JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE!"

Decisions Decisions... so very many Decisions!

If this is too long for you. Sorry! But it's important for our "family journal". Read on if you care to.


There are reasons for our long blogging hiatus.  For so long there was so much, and yet, so little to blog about. (nothing with fun pictures anyway)  Life has been a bit of a whirlwind for us.  The semester is winding down at a scary/jubilant pace for Luke. We knew this day would eventually come, but it still feels surreal.  The college student life is the only life we (as in, US together) have ever known.  Now, in about 3 weeks, it's over...

With that said, that means we need to board the REAL-LIFE train.  Luke applied and applied and applied, for almost any electrical engineering job he could find within Utah's borders, beginning in January, as well as attending any sort of job fair the school offered.  That resulted in a several phone interviews with various places, one interview-ish type thing at Hill Air Force Base and a whole lot of rejections. But we didn't give up hope.
Even when it got rather discouraging.  But alas, about 2 weeks ago it felt as if everything was finally falling in place for him.  In one week he got an (personal-not just phone) interview at the Space Dynamic Lab here in Logan, several phone calls from people from companies he applied at and was rejected by, saying there were new listings and he should reapply AND his current employment explained that they were still trying to find a way to keep him on.  He also got a call to go down to Payson for an interview at a small company called Sunstone Engineering for the following Friday.  Well then he got word that he was probably going to get an offer from SDL (Space Dy. Lab) and we felt that it would be best to see if he could arrange for his interview in Payson to be moved up. He got a hold of them Monday morning and we were down there interviewing by 3 pm that afternoon.
He came away from that interview very excited.  I was already excited.  When I first heard about Payson as a possible place I had a really good feeling about it.  So while he was interviewing I was driving around the city trying to picture us living there. I became more excited!
They also seemed very interested in him and said if they decided to do a second interview, it would probably be the owner and his wife taking Luke and his wife out to dinner.  The next day, the phone call was made and we had dinner scheduled for Friday.
Meanwhile, he didn't hear back from SDL as he had expected.  Yet he continued to hear back from other companies, including Hill Air Force Base about new job listings.  We decided that one was just not for us... and we looked forward to our dinner interview.
Friday came and we had our "interview" at Shoots, a place in Provo. It happened to have a live band just outside of the restaurant and after only a few minutes it was relocated to Ruby River.
The dinner was delicious, meeting and getting to know the boss and his wife was very nice, and learning about the company was very interesting.
But the best part of the night........... he got a job offer!  It was a happy moment!
He explained he did have an interview with Rio Tinto (for the following Friday-which was 2 days ago from now) and they said he could have until the following Monday to tell them. That day is tomorrow!
We spent Friday night at our friends, Blake and Chantel's, house. They were kind enough to watch our girlies during the dinner, and let us stay with them. They even kept us company while we looked at several houses with our great Realtor, my brother James.
We tried to come home Saturday after looking houses, but we nearly got in a car wreck, witness another one, and drove through the after-math of one, within 5 minutes of leaving their house. SO we stayed until early Sunday morning and drove home before Fast and Testimony meeting.

Well, after thinking (and fasting) about it over for the weekend we were about 90% sure we would take the job.  It being a smaller company, it can't pay very well like the larger companies... but hey, it was a lot higher than no job pays! And... like previously mentioned, it just felt good! We even got really serious about selling our house (as For Sale By Owner hasn't been successful) we decided to list our house with the afore mentioned Realtor.  He came up Tuesday afternoon to finalize the paperwork and put up our new lawn ornament. (it's not quite as cute as our other new one)

Back to the story. Tuesday a wrench got thrown into the plans..  SDL (logan) called him up  and extended the job offer.  Immediately looking at it, we thought, "oh it's not that much higher in salary.. we can still easily take Payson) But then we looked into their benefit's package that was broken down for us.  It started to look AMAZING! Salary wise it wasn't a whole lot more, but when you take into consideration the retirement and everything else, it brought the actual pay to be a much MUCH higher sum.
I hate to complain about this. We are SO SO SO GRATEFUL to have 1 job offer, let alone 2. That is a huge blessing for us.  We understand so many people can't get jobs in these tough economic tines, and here we are with 2 offers at 2 great companies.
We are grateful , but you'd think that having a really nice paying job would make me happy. But I was so excited about moving to Payson and now this offer is so good.... it needed to actually be considered.

This has been the hardest decision of our lives! Each company is great for their own reasons. Each has a lot of benefits and he feels like he'd enjoy both jobs. They are both in a good places to raise a family. We have loved Logan... but Payson is a lot closer to our families--which was a major goal of ours.  The small companies have so many benefits, but so do the large ones..and so on and so on. When we prayed about it, we could never get a distinct answer either. That would have made things easy. It just felt like either choice would be okay.  We have gone back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's been a real roller-coaster.
But ready or not, tomorrow we have to give our answer.

Until it's finalized, I can't say what our decision is................ but I'm here to tell you, it has not come easily.

However, we went to the Temple yesterday with an answer in mind and wanted to have it confirmed. We had such a neat experience. We both felt like we'd be the witness couple, and we were.  And the spirit was very sweet in the temple.  There is so much power found by going to the House of the Lord.

April Fools Classic

I don't want to forget this so I'm posting it now.
Preface: I have been trying to teach Tianna about all of the holidays we celebrate, even the silly ones.  April Fools was no different...I told her on April 1st you play tricks on people and we needed to think of a good trick to play on daddy.

On her way to preschool Friday morning she said, "Oh Mom! Today is the day we get to play a trick on Dad, huh!" I said, "yes, have you thought of anything to do?" and she got this bright smile on her face and said, "Yes! I have a good idea. I'll do a somersault on him! Or a pike!"  It took me a minute, but then I realized when I said play a TRICK on dad she was thinking of her gymnastic tricks! haha. I love how children make two-and-two in their smart little minds.

Another funny Tianna story that I don't want to forget, happened a few months ago. I got the old scrubber toothbrush out to scrub the hard water and gunk build up from around the bathroom sink. She got in the drawer where I keep my spare (travel) toothbrush and pulled it out and said she wanted to help. I said, "No no that's not one for cleaning. I still use that one.."
She was quiet for a minute and then said, "Mom, I have something to tell you.  (she had a rather horrified expression on her face too)  Every night when I come up to brush my teeth I get that toothbrush and scrub the counter with it." "Wait, what? You scrub the counter with it?" and she said, "Yes, I go like this:" and she then demonstrated how she scrubs the counter, and the walls, and the mirror, and the towel rack... with my toothbrush.    All I can say is THANK GOODNESS I forgot to take it with me the last time I went out of town.
She was glad I wasn't mad. Honestly, since I hadn't used it since she had been doing that, I found it quite funny.  However, I did tell her I really need her to ask before doing stuff like that. She's such a silly and funny and wonderful little girl. I sure love her!.

Our Own Kind of March Maddness

Even despite the "Jimmer" mania, we are just not much into basketball watching. Luke may be IF he had time. But he doesn't. And honestly, I couldn't care less about the game.

But in our house, we have had our own "Maddness" during March. That is, trying to entertain ourselves on these long. LONG stormy and not-always-so-spring-like days.

We've been to play on the "food" at the Mall. Luckily, and surprisingly, we caught it when it wasn't completely accosted by every other bored child-parent combo in Cache Valley.

St. Patrick's day was exciting.. as we could make it! We had some friends over  to eat some...

 GREEN Waffles (Great Grandma Luke's recipe-for those that know what that means, you KNOW they were good!)

 And what's St. Patty's day without some RAINBOWS?! Adelia was trying so hard! I love it!! And Tianna's square rainbow makes me laugh. I have such cute kids!

THEN we attended a random event on USU campus. They were doing a 20,000 bouncy ball drop to break a world record. We came away with 10 little choking hazards. YAAAY! :D 

After St P's day we have continued on the FUN TRAIN! We've discovered the joys of JEWELRY! and reaffirmed her love of CHOCOLATE! as you can see...

and not to be forgotten: 

Luke built a ROBOT named WHEEL-E. Not to be confused with WALL-E.  We're so proud of him and his smarts! 

He's been working his tail off to stay afloat in his classes, apply and apply and apply, and interview for jobs...Still no real offers :( ...But the RIGHT ONE'S coming. We just know it! 

All the while, still do all the other stuff a husband and father has to do. Have I ever mentioned how glad we are he is almost DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE?!  Side Note: check out our little "Graduation Paper Chain" hanging on the curtain rod behind him.  It started at 78 days till Graduation. To me it's flown by and I'm happy to say we are now at..

Day 45 folks. Day 45!!! (it makes me excited, it freaks him out. He knows all that he has to do before then) 

Fam Photos 2011

I can't believe I've forgotten to post our Family Pictures taken the first weekend of March at the Wedge- a Grand Canyon look-alike near Castle Dale.
Luke's sister Monica took them and they are amazing :) I love having family photographers! And the scenery isn't half bad either...

 

Love you guys!

Deserts,Dentist, Dessert(!?) and Dancing

2 weeks ago, (on the last day Luke had to work on his thesis before he had to turn it over to the review board on Feb 28th) we got 10 inches of snow.
So while he was stuck inside, I spent 2 hours shoveling the snow, and the girls spent lots of time enjoying it!

The following weekend, since it was "Spring Break"  we escaped Arctic, Utah, and went down to the Castle Valley for some much needed family time. 

We went to the DESERT-- which was WONDERFUL! 

We took some family pics, (that will have to be in a separate post) and had a fun little tin foil dinner out at The Wedge (little Grand Canyon). Tianna loved playing in the dirt and throwing rocks, and Adelia liked flirting with Courtney's beau, and snuggling Grandpa. 

As much as I love the mountains, AND the snow (till this time of year), I am kind of a desert rat.

 I LOVED being out there on that warmish sunnyish day.  And who wouldn't? Look how perdy!

On Sunday Luke had to get back to Logan for work on Monday but the girlies and I stayed in Price for a couple days.

Tianna and I went to the DENTIST. She was WONDERFUL for her first time being at the big D's and she had NO cavities! What a proud mommy I was! 

Her sister on the other hand......... with all the sugar she eats, I bet she'll end up with tons of cavities! 

Here she is with her "Dessert" which is actually rather disgusting. She found the butter dish and I don't know how much she ate and how much she was just playing with, but........ ew. And I'm pretty sure she ruined her dress that lil stinker!

While were were down Tianna also got to attend Tori's DANCE class with 3 of her cousins, Camryn, Jocelyn, and Harley. It was a hoot watching them dance.  Thanks Tori for including an extra : )

Wednesday I rode up North with my parents and met up with Luke and his interview at Hill Air Force Base. So from Tuesday night- today (Saturday) the girls have been staying at Luke's parent's house.  They are arriving here in Logan in a few hours and I'm so excited! I have missed my little cutie pies!

Although.....

Going on a long outside run, to the temple 2x, and having a date without having to worry about a babysitter or rushing home has been quite luxurious! 

But, I will happily go back to having them around so I can hug my little bugs again! 

I love you girls SO SO MUCH!